The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and =20the Department of English are pleased to announce the 2007 UF =20Conference on Comics: "World Building: Seriality and History which =20will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on March 3-4, 2007, in =20conjunction with the annual Game and Digital Media Studies =20Conference, which will be March 1-2.

This fifth annual conference on comics will focus on the construction =20=

of narrative worlds in comics, with particular emphasis on the =20various temporalities of the medium. We are especially interested in =20the ways temporality informs the status of comics as a serial medium =20(both in terms of serial publication as well as the serialization of =20time within the page) and the ways temporality relates to the =20representation of history and memory within the narrative. This =20could be in terms of personal and social history, as in Maus and =20Persepolis, or in terms of internal narrative histories like =20superhero retcons and crossovers.

Our keynote speakers for this year include Jeff Smith (Bone), Bryan =20Talbot (The Tale of One Bad Rat, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright), =20=

Depictions of trauma and repetition in comics (Persepolis, Stuck =20Rubber Baby, Diary of a Young Girl, etc)

The transition of Marvel and DC from "lines" to "universes," and =20universes created as such (Valiant, Milestone, Wildstorm, etc)

Political cartoons and the dialectic of history

We also encourage submissions that cross over with the Game and =20Digital Media Studies conference, on the topic of "World Building: =20Space and Community," particularly those that consider the role of =20time and space across multiple media. We will also consider two-part =20submissions on related topics to be presented across the two =20conferences, and other proposals that push the formal constraints of =20a conference presentation.

Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length.Presentations will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and answer.The deadline for abstract submissions is January 1st, 2007. Abstracts =20=

should be submitted via our online conference system, which is on the =20=